Made in Korea Season 2 Ending: Is Baek Ki-tae Alive?

Did Baek Ki-tae really die? Director Woo Min-ho has now given a direct answer: Ki-tae is alive, and he will return in Season 3. But the final gunshot still marks the end of his era. Full spoilers.

When Made in Korea Season 2 Episodes 5–6 were released, I read the final scene as Baek Ki-tae’s death. Baek Ki-hyun points a gun at his brother, a shot rings out, and there was a bitter irony in the idea that Ki-tae, who spent his life protecting his family, would die at the hands of the younger brother he had tried to protect.

Director Woo Min-ho has since answered the question directly in a post-finale interview: Ki-tae is alive. Season 3 was already in preparation while Season 2 was being made, and Ki-tae will return.

That does not change my main reading of the Season 2 ending. Ki-tae survives, but his era is over. The Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), the institution that made his rise possible, is collapsing, and Hwang Dae-sik and the military are moving into the vacuum. The final gunshot marks the end of Ki-tae’s era.

His two deepest beliefs, family and patriotism, fall apart as well. The brother he spent his life protecting ends up pointing a gun at him, and his sister becomes addicted to the same drugs their family helped sell. Ki-tae survives, but the world he believed in has already beaten him.

Episode 5 — God’s Will

The Last 10 Seconds at Cheonungak—and Two Brothers Choose Different Sides

At Cheonungak, Ki-tae has planted a bomb beneath the table where Hwang Dae-sik and his group are drinking. But Ki-hyun arrives late, and Ki-tae eventually ends up sitting at the same table. Time continues to run down as Ki-tae and Geon-young exchange barbed remarks, while Ki-tae repeatedly tries to get his brother out of the room. Hwang stops him.

With alcohol flowing and people singing around him, Ki-tae secretly reaches beneath the table. With fewer than ten seconds remaining and essentially a fifty-fifty choice, he cuts the red wire. The bomb does not explode.

Later, Ki-hyun confronts his brother and asks what exactly he is planning. Then he draws a line between them. “The world has changed. Chief Secretary Cheon won’t make it out alive either.” He tells Ki-tae to leave for Japan while he still can. The brothers are now effectively on opposite sides.

Around the same time, Ki-tae visits So-young in the hospital after her drug use has put her there. Instead of promising to stop, she asks him to get her more drugs. She then breaks down, demands to know why he killed Kang Dae-il, and tells him never to come back.

Hwang Dae-sik Brings Ki-hyun to His Side

Hwang invites Ki-hyun and Ahn Jae-ho to his home and pours them ginseng liquor. He says that if no one else recognizes the people who devote themselves to the country, he will, and that is why he takes care of his juniors until the end. Ki-hyun is clearly affected by the gesture.

Meanwhile, Geon-young brings coffee to Cheon Seok-jung in the interrogation room and pressures him to give up Ki-tae. When Cheon refuses, Geon-young asks whether he is simply waiting for Hwang Dae-sik to die. He seems to have read Cheon correctly: Geon-young understands exactly what the old power broker is waiting for.

Ki-tae orders his men to investigate Hwang’s inner circle. They identify Security Command Captain Min Jong-hwan, whose uncle defected to North Korea and whose background records had once been erased. Ki-tae uses that vulnerability against him, but Min is not simply a reluctant victim. Tired of being treated like a nobody because he has no connections, he sees the assignment as an opportunity.

The next day, Min is told to carry a bag containing a bomb into the Joint Investigation Headquarters meeting room.

The Twist—Jang Geon-young Took the First Bomb

Pyo Hak-soo learns that Ki-tae’s side is trying to obtain explosives again and passes the information to Geon-young. That night, Geon-young enters the dark, empty Joint Investigation Headquarters office and opens a cabinet.

Inside is a bomb.

The person who removed the device from beneath the table at Cheonungak was Geon-young all along.

Episode 6 — Made in Korea

The Bomb Was Bait—and Hwang Was Never in the Car

Geon-young shows the Cheonungak bomb to Hwang but tells him the meeting must still go ahead. Min Jong-hwan enters the room with another explosive device, activates it, and prepares to leave. Geon-young calls his name, Min realizes that he has walked into a trap, and Ahn Jae-ho arrests him.

This bomb has a black wire and a yellow wire. This time, it is Geon-young who risks his life and cuts one of them to defuse it.

At the same moment, Ki-tae and his KCIA agents ambush Hwang’s motorcade. After intense gunfire, one vehicle finally comes to a stop, but Hwang Dae-sik is not inside. The man bleeding behind the wheel is Baek Ki-hyun, revealing that the entire operation was part of Geon-young’s plan.

Earlier that morning, Geon-young had already told Hwang what Ki-tae was trying to do. Ki-hyun was sent in Hwang’s place in the vehicle heading toward the safe house, while Hwang himself remained at Joint Investigation Headquarters. Geon-young had even anticipated that Ki-tae would try to draw Hwang outside and assassinate him.

Season 1 taught Geon-young what happens when he underestimates Baek Ki-tae, and he does not make the same mistake twice.

Cheon Seok-jung’s Press Conference—and the Final Betrayals

Cornered, Pyo Hak-soo offers to cooperate with Geon-young in exchange for control of the KCIA. Geon-young threatens him instead, and Pyo quickly drops the demand and hands over what he knows.

Madam Shin visits Cheon Seok-jung in the interrogation room, followed by Hwang Dae-sik, who points a gun at him and forces him to choose. Cheon eventually appears at a press conference arranged by the Joint Investigation Headquarters and announces that the entire slush fund belonged to Baek Ki-tae. He also claims that Ki-tae tried to kill Hwang to stop the investigation.

Geon-young confronts Hwang. This is not what he fought for. But Hwang tells him that he decides whose era ends and whose begins. Geon-young walks out, and Hwang orders Ahn Jae-ho to find Ki-tae and kill him before the day is over.

Ki-tae, now on the run, sees the broadcast. He later encounters Cheon Seok-jung coming out of the president’s inner office carrying bags of money. When Cheon asks him to trust him, Ki-tae answers, “I have never trusted you.”

Then he shoots Cheon in the ear.

Back at his own office, Ki-tae catches Pyo Hak-soo breaking into his safe. He shoots Pyo in the leg and points the gun directly at his forehead as Pyo begs for his life.

Did Pyo Hak-soo die?

Baek Ki-tae’s Final Scene

Ki-tae hears that Ki-hyun has been hospitalized and goes to see him. He senses that something is wrong with the deserted hospital, but by then it is too late. Soldiers open fire, and an oxygen cylinder explodes in the chaos. Ki-tae escapes in a car, but not before being shot.

Geon-young pursues Ki-tae’s vehicle. They finally face each other inside an isolated factory, where Ki-tae shoots Geon-young in the arm and knocks the gun from his hand.

“Do you still believe you’re right?”

Geon-young answers.

“The world has changed. The world doesn’t need you anymore. You’re finished.”

Ki-tae does not kill him. He walks back toward his car, and another vehicle suddenly appears. Ki-hyun gets out, raises his gun, and points it at his brother.

As Ki-tae looks at his younger brother, one thought seems to pass through his mind:

“I was a patriot. Everything I did was for this country.”

Ki-hyun appears to pull the trigger, and a shot rings out. But the drama never shows Ki-tae being hit, and it never shows his body afterward. On the scene alone, reading it as his death was entirely reasonable.

Those Who Remain

When So-young’s daughter Min-ju enters the room, So-young quickly hides the methamphetamine she is holding and pretends that everything is fine. It does not look as though she will escape the addiction anytime soon.

As Geon-young leaves Joint Investigation Headquarters, Hwang offers him a handshake and asks where the 70 billion won went. Geon-young says it has been safely returned to the national treasury. Ahn Jae-ho then hands him a suit, and Hwang tells him he will need one if he is going to open a law office. It sounds as if Hwang intends to make sure Geon-young is pardoned, although whether that will actually happen is another matter.

Pyo Hak-soo is alive. With his injured leg, he limps desperately after Hwang and the soldiers around him. It is fitting for a man who has spent the entire season watching not whom he should be loyal to, but who is likely to survive. Baek Ki-tae’s era ends, and Pyo immediately starts running after the next center of power.

Geon-young and Ki-hyun also cross paths on their way to work. Geon-young asks, “Any regrets?” Ki-hyun does not answer.

Geon-young remembers what he once said to Ki-tae: claiming that the times had gone mad was only an excuse, because in the end everyone still made their own choices. To catch Ki-tae, Geon-young himself had sold his patriotism to those in power.

The final scene returns to the past—to the opening of Season 2, Episode 1. The former president and Madam Shin enter the inner room while Ki-tae presses his ear against the door, unable to hear anything. He then sits in the president’s chair, puts one of the president’s cigarettes in his mouth, and says one word.

“Imja.”

Baek Ki-tae Is Alive

The scene left room for doubt, and Woo Min-ho’s post-finale interview settles it: Ki-tae is definitely alive. He was written to die in the original script, but Woo changed the ending during production. As Woo explains it, Ki-tae does not die with the gunshot; he disappears from that era.

That explanation lines up with what the gunshot means. Ki-tae rose alongside the KCIA, and after the October 26 assassination of President Park Chung-hee, that political order begins to crumble while the military power represented by Hwang Dae-sik starts to rise. The shot signals the end of the 1970s political world that made Ki-tae possible. He survives, but he still loses in Season 2.

The man survives. His era does not.

This is no longer an open ending in the usual sense. Woo said Season 3 was already in preparation while Season 2 was being made, and that Ki-tae will return. The final scene is his exit from this era, not his death.

The Battle of Wits Between Geon-young and Ki-tae

In Season 1, just as Ki-tae and Cheon Seok-jung’s corruption is about to be exposed, Ki-tae sets a trap. Knowing that Pyo Hak-soo is after Cheon’s recordings, he deliberately leaves behind evidence implicating the presidential chief secretary, leading Pyo to betray Geon-young. Ki-tae then turns his own interrogation into a reversal in which Geon-young is arrested on corruption charges.

Season 2 almost completely flips that structure. Pyo moves again, but this time Geon-young realizes what Ki-tae is doing and uses the information to drive him into a corner. Sending Ki-hyun in Hwang’s place becomes the move that finally breaks Ki-tae’s plan.

Ki-tae was the one who won in Season 1. In Season 2, Geon-young learns Ki-tae’s methods and turns them back on him. I have to give the director and writers credit for building the season around that reversal.

Why Doesn’t Ki-tae Kill Geon-young?

Ki-tae does not see himself as a villain. He genuinely believes that what he has done was an act of patriotism, and even after losing almost everything, he does not completely let go of that belief. He may also understand that killing Geon-young would not restore the power or political world that has already collapsed around him.

This scene can also no longer be read as the last word on their relationship. With Ki-tae returning in Season 3, what happened between him and Geon-young may not have ended in Season 2.

In Season 1, Ki-tae defeated Geon-young. In Season 2, Geon-young learned how Ki-tae operated and used those methods to bring him down. Both men survive, which leaves their next confrontation open for Season 3.

“The World Has Changed”—What Does That Line Mean?

Geon-young’s words to Ki-tae sound almost like a line running through modern Korean history. In the drama, the Park Chung-hee era is a time when personal sacrifice is demanded in the name of economic development, and even corrupt methods can be excused if they are supposedly used for the country. Ki-tae sells drugs and kills people, yet still calls what he does patriotism.

That era is now ending, and another arrives claiming to stand for justice. But the “justice” represented by Hwang Dae-sik—and by the real Chun Doo-hwan whom Hwang’s position strongly evokes—was a justice defined by a small military faction around him. For most Koreans, what followed was another dictatorship and another struggle for democracy. The country therefore moves from an era in which almost anything could be postponed for economic growth into an era in which power presents itself as justice.

After the December 12, 1979 military rebellion, Chun Doo-hwan and the New Military Group consolidated control of the armed forces. The June Democratic Struggle forced the regime to accept direct presidential elections in 1987, but Roh Tae-woo—a former general, one of Chun’s closest allies, and the ruling party candidate—won the election that followed. South Korea’s first civilian government in more than three decades began under Kim Young-sam in 1993, more than thirteen years after 1979.

Ki-tae does not die, but the KCIA-centered political order he represents is coming to an end. That makes Geon-young’s line, “The world has changed,” bigger than one man’s downfall. It reads closer to a declaration that the people and institutions holding power are being replaced.

Who Is Madam Shin?

Madam Shin is clearly some kind of shaman, but she does not resemble a typical Korean mudang. The production blends Korean shamanic elements with visual cues that may feel Japanese to some Korean viewers, creating a character whose rituals do not fit neatly into either tradition.

Park Chung-hee attended the Manchukuo Army Military Academy before continuing his military education at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. He later served as an officer in the Manchukuo Army, was fluent in Japanese, and was known to sing Japanese military songs at drinking gatherings.

What I have not found is credible evidence that Park himself was deeply involved in Japanese-style shamanism. Madam Shin’s rituals are therefore better understood as a fictional element created for the drama rather than something directly based on Park’s documented life.

Who Really Held Power at This Point?

The drama still portrays the KCIA as an organization capable of fighting Hwang almost on equal terms. Historically, the situation was very different. After KCIA Director Kim Jae-gyu assassinated President Park, the KCIA and other old centers of power were badly weakened, while Chun Doo-hwan, as head of the Joint Investigation Headquarters, gained unusually broad investigative and intelligence authority.

However, the most powerful formal military command still belonged to Army Chief of Staff and Martial Law Commander Jeong Seung-hwa. Jeong was preparing personnel moves to curb Chun and his faction’s overreach, but Chun’s side learned of the plan first. On December 12, 1979, they mobilized troops and arrested Jeong, publicly claiming that he needed to be investigated for alleged involvement with Kim Jae-gyu in the October 26 assassination.

The most accurate way to describe the real Hwang Dae-sik—or rather, Chun Doo-hwan at the historical position Hwang evokes—is this: he was already extremely powerful, but he was not yet the final winner. The event that made him that winner was the December 12 military rebellion.

The Best Scene in the Drama

For me, the best scene in the drama is still the expression on Ki-tae’s face when his younger brother points a gun at him.

Ki-tae has spent his life believing that everything he did was for his country and his family. Yet in the final moment, the younger brother he tried to protect is the one pointing a gun at him. Knowing now that Ki-tae survives, the scene loses very little of its power.

His physical survival is not what matters most in that moment. Ki-tae is being rejected by the family he tried to protect and by the political era that gave him power. What collapses in front of him is the logic he used to justify his entire life.

Hyun Bin does not explain any of this through dialogue. The blank expression, the coldness in his eyes, and the red light cutting across the scene are enough to show the moment Ki-tae realizes that his era is over.

What Does Ki-tae’s Final Word “Imja” Mean?

In the final scene, Ki-tae sits in the president’s chair, puts a cigarette in his mouth, and says one word.

“Imja.”

To an international viewer, it may sound meaningless. In older Korean, imja could be used for a spouse, but it was also a familiar way of addressing someone—often someone of similar or lower status. It is rarely heard in ordinary modern Korean conversation.

The word is particularly associated with Park Chung-hee’s way of speaking to officials around him. Former officials’ recollections preserve examples such as Park telling Seoul Mayor Jeong Sang-cheon, “Imja, why don’t we try hosting the Olympics?” and addressing economic official Kim Yong-hwan with the same expression.

When Ki-tae sits in the president’s chair and says “Imja,” he is therefore doing more than imitating an old-fashioned speech pattern. For a moment, he becomes Park Chung-hee.

Throughout the series, Ki-tae insists that he does not want money for its own sake and that everything he does is for the country. Yet this final scene reveals that somewhere inside him, his desire had already reached the president’s chair.

The word can also carry different emotional associations in Korea. To people who remember Park positively, it may sound like an old-fashioned, familiar part of his personality. To people who view his authoritarian rule critically, the same word can evoke the hierarchy and power of that era.

Ending Season 2 with “Imja” therefore leaves one final question hanging over Ki-tae’s patriotism: did he really want to serve the country, or did he ultimately want the chair?

What Happens to Hwang Dae-sik Next?

Ki-tae does not die here. He disappears from history for a time, while Hwang Dae-sik’s era is only beginning. Hwang is a fictional character, but his position in 1979 strongly evokes the rise of the real-life Chun Doo-hwan.

What followed for Chun in actual history was not decline. The December 12 military coup, the consolidation of military power, and eventually the acquisition of far greater political authority all came afterward. That is what makes the ending so unsettling.

The fact that Ki-tae survives does not make the ending any happier. The political power he represented is collapsing, while a different and potentially more dangerous force is beginning to replace it. Another political order is already taking shape.

And Ki-tae’s story is not over. The question is no longer whether he is alive, but what kind of Korea he will return to, and what kind of man he will be when he does.

I covered Hwang Dae-sik’s possible future—and Chun Doo-hwan’s rise and fall—in a separate article. If you are unfamiliar with modern Korean history, it changes the way the ending of Season 2 looks.

Made in Korea 2: What Happens to Hwang Dae-sik? The Real History Behind His Rise and Fall

Basic Info

Drama: Made in Korea Season 2
Episodes: 5–6 of 6
Release Date: September 23, 2026
Director: Woo Min-ho
Writers: Park Eun-gyo, Park Joon-suk
Cast: Hyun Bin, Jung Woo-sung, Woo Do-hwan, Won Ji-an, Seo Eun-soo, Jung Sung-il, Heo Jung-do
Genre: Political Crime Thriller
Where to Watch: Hulu in the US, Disney+ internationally
Spoilers: Full spoilers